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Watchdog call for children

Australia needs a national watchdog to ensure governments, churches and other institutions are following child-safe practices, the Catholic Church has told the royal commission into child sex abuse.

The church calls for mandatory accreditation and data collection by an independent national body, to cover all institutions working with children, in its submission to the inquiry.

''We are setting the bar high, but the bar needs to be high,'' church spokesman Francis Sullivan said. ''Self-regulation, as the royal commission has already started to reveal, hasn't worked. We've admitted in the past that we have dropped the ball.''

Mr Sullivan, chief executive of the church's Truth, Justice and Healing Council, said: ''It's like a watchdog. At present there is none.'' Similar mandatory accreditation and checks already existed in aged care and hospitals.

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Mr Sullivan said there was no fail-safe method to identify people unsuitable to work with children. Current screening usually focused on criminal offences, drugs and violence. ''Organisations need to … get as much information as possible about potential employees that will enable them to minimise risk,'' he said.